What a fascinating column! Having lived in Sonoma County for only 14 years, I never knew of this history. And your sense of humor about the eagle is delightful!
When I arrived in 1970 I met the late Mick Clumpner who lived in the Camp and was a WPA worker. He was a poet and wrote a short history of the camp and his work. He was a fire watcher around Mt Jackson. They nailed climbing slats to a tree and just climbed up and sat on a limb looking for smoke. His most interesting stories were all the men coming to town to drink and recreate on the weekend. They all had to walk back in the middle of the night. It must have been exciting as a young person. Those old rock projects are great and the camp tent stone foundations still exist.
Thank you for this history story. My father worked with the CCC as a poor Wisconsin farmer’s kid. Then joined the Navy in 1942 to be a Seabee in the South Pacific islands building infrastructure for the troops.
He was part of the generation that brought the middle class into existence. Ironically, each subsequent generation fought old time ideas of altruism and sharing, with evermore self indulgence. Look at the men in the photos, lean and healthy. Now, so many in society have gorged themselves on « stuff » that we have addiction to drugs, obesity and voted in fascism because the democrats wouldn’t do anything to prevent such chaos.
We have a national illness of false expectations and evil people keep us distracted and over fed. « Eat your food, there are kids starving in Asia » Having recently come from Singapore, the ethics shown in your story are alive and vigorous. The US is no longer a first world country but the powerful keep voters sufficiently tranquil.
Climate change will impact our ignorance severely. I’m 80 years old and appreciate the work other nations will do, that the US will not.
Thanks again for this bit of how our village became.
Gosh, Crime and responsibility. Perhaps moderate corporal punishment might have value.
It existed during the society in this essay: In the United States, judicial flogging was last used in 1952 in Delaware when a wife-beater got 20 lashes. In Delaware, the criminal code permitted floggings until 1972.[72][73][74] One of the major objections to judicial corporal punishment in the United States was that it was unpleasant to administer
What a fascinating column! Having lived in Sonoma County for only 14 years, I never knew of this history. And your sense of humor about the eagle is delightful!
When I arrived in 1970 I met the late Mick Clumpner who lived in the Camp and was a WPA worker. He was a poet and wrote a short history of the camp and his work. He was a fire watcher around Mt Jackson. They nailed climbing slats to a tree and just climbed up and sat on a limb looking for smoke. His most interesting stories were all the men coming to town to drink and recreate on the weekend. They all had to walk back in the middle of the night. It must have been exciting as a young person. Those old rock projects are great and the camp tent stone foundations still exist.
I think the mural is in the Grange
Thank you for this history story. My father worked with the CCC as a poor Wisconsin farmer’s kid. Then joined the Navy in 1942 to be a Seabee in the South Pacific islands building infrastructure for the troops.
He was part of the generation that brought the middle class into existence. Ironically, each subsequent generation fought old time ideas of altruism and sharing, with evermore self indulgence. Look at the men in the photos, lean and healthy. Now, so many in society have gorged themselves on « stuff » that we have addiction to drugs, obesity and voted in fascism because the democrats wouldn’t do anything to prevent such chaos.
We have a national illness of false expectations and evil people keep us distracted and over fed. « Eat your food, there are kids starving in Asia » Having recently come from Singapore, the ethics shown in your story are alive and vigorous. The US is no longer a first world country but the powerful keep voters sufficiently tranquil.
Climate change will impact our ignorance severely. I’m 80 years old and appreciate the work other nations will do, that the US will not.
Thanks again for this bit of how our village became.
Gosh, Crime and responsibility. Perhaps moderate corporal punishment might have value.
It existed during the society in this essay: In the United States, judicial flogging was last used in 1952 in Delaware when a wife-beater got 20 lashes. In Delaware, the criminal code permitted floggings until 1972.[72][73][74] One of the major objections to judicial corporal punishment in the United States was that it was unpleasant to administer
A number of the old WPA-paved streets are still with us. Example, So. High Street, south of Willow.